


lay your head on the riverbed

by kingsoftheimpossible



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Curses, Drownjobs, Floodgasms, Friendship, Magical Realism, Monsters, Other, Suspension Of Disbelief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 18:42:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1952010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsoftheimpossible/pseuds/kingsoftheimpossible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My best friend is a monster,” Harry says, which isn’t the weirdest thing he’s ever said to Nick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dialetheism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dialetheism/gifts).



> for m dialetheism. i think you're really great.
> 
> prompt: magical realism
> 
> title from ["lost river" by murder by death](http://youtu.be/ph8AlodMnjk)
> 
> this isn't brit-picked and i'm sorry, but i had The Greatest beta/handholder in amanda deliriumarchive. any remaining fuck ups are on me.
> 
> suspend all disbelief starting now:

 

* * *

 “My best friend is a monster,” Harry says, which isn’t the weirdest thing he’s ever said to Nick. It’s not even the weirdest thing he’s said _today_ \- that honorific probably goes to _A fan cursed me because I couldn’t stop for a photo and now I’ve got a huge rack_. The pause before _...of_ _antlers_ was particularly artful, in Nick’s professional opinion as someone who talks for a living.

“What sort of monster?” Nick asks, because they’ve been drinking for a bit, and Harry showed up on Nick’s doorstep with a massive set of antlers growing out of his curly, ridiculous head, and Nick doesn’t have the energy for doubt right now. He has just enough energy for more wine and vague interest in Harry’s story. Anything else is pushing it.

Harry sighs heavily, a big, tragic, melodramatic thing that makes Nick roll his eyes. “The worst kind,” Harry says miserably, which is the sort of vague unhelpful shit that always reminds Nick that one of his best friends is a twenty year old child, basically. He kicks Harry in the shin and doesn't even feel terribly bad when Harry lets out a sad, bleating little cry.

They’re quiet for a while, kicking their legs through the rails of Nick’s balcony and looking out over the bit of London they can see. The sun’s dropping and it’s cloudy, like it could rain at any moment. Nick can physically _feel_ Harry waiting to be pressed for more information.

When he’s polished off the last bit of wine, Nick finally gives in. “So tell me about your monster friend,” he says, carefully leaning his head against Harry’s broad shoulder, narrowly missing an antler prong to the eye.

Harry lets out the breath he’d been holding, perks up and wiggles a bit to get comfortable before resting his head against Nick’s. “He’s really great, Nick. Like, the best, ever.”

Nick hums noncommittally, because Harry thinks everyone is the best, ever. Harry spent a good fifteen minutes earlier babbling about what a good job the witch fan had done on his antlers.

“But I’m worried about him,” Harry goes on, deep voice sobering up, going from his regular somber tone to downright morbid. He shifts around a bit, producing a folded scrap of paper from his back pocket. “He stole my phone and put out this ad in the newspaper.” He slides it to Nick and then stays quiet, lets him read.

It’s a tiny thing, just a few lines long:

_Monster in need of slaying. By appointment only, Tuesdays and Thursdays work best. Please call ahead._

There’s a phone number at the bottom- Harry’s cell, actually- and a crude drawing of a dragon eating a stick person.

"Well, he's clearly very driven. Knows what he wants from life," Nick offers lightly, skimming the lines again because the whole situation is just ridiculous, like everything remotely involving Harry Styles. "Though I'm not sure enough people read the newspaper anymore for a print ad to reach the desired audience... Have you gotten any offers?"

“Niiiiiiick,” Harry whines, leaning away so he can peer beseechingly at Nick with his big doe eyes, all green and no white to them post-curse.

It’s all very sad, Nick’s sure, but he doesn’t know what Harry expects _him_ to do about it.

“He’s just lonely,” Harry goes on, eyes going just that bit wider, the way they do when he’s trying to get his way. “I’m on tour all the time now, and he just needs a friend!”

“And what do you expect me to do about that?” Nick asks, raising an eyebrow. Harry doesn’t answer right away, big eyes rolling nervously to the side, and Nick’s instantly suspicious.

“Harold, what is it?” he asks, stern now, because he _knows_ that face.

“Nothing!” Harry says quickly, but it comes out as a sort of distressed animalistic honk, and Nick carefully extricates himself from Harry and the balcony railing, standing so he can glare with more force.

“Except I sort of-” Harry winces, bawls and bleats nervously and looks anywhere but Nick’s accusatory face, butts his rack against the railing a bit. “I want you to go visit him with me! I think it’d really help him out! I’m sorry!”

Nick tries very hard to look unimpressed, but it’s difficult not to laugh when Harry’s antlers get caught in the railing.

“When?” Nick asks, watching with interest as Harry frantically twists and turns his head to get free, though it mostly looks as if he’s making things worse.

“Well,” Harry says carefully, stilling and fixing his huge whiteless eyes on Nick, “now, actually. If that’s alright.”

* * *

 

It’s started raining and it’s dark and Nick’s wearing wellington boots about three sizes too large, slogging along the bank of a muddy riverbed in the middle of nowhere. In one hand he’s got his old Radio 1 identification badge from before he got his picture redone ( _You have to give him something personal_ , Harry’d said, _or he gets a bit dodgy_ ) and in the other he’s got a frankly uselessly tiny flashlight. He’d be afraid they were lost if he couldn’t hear Harry confidently crashing along in front of him, see his ridiculous rack bobbing along, outlined against the full moon.

“How much further?” Nick calls, subtly clutching the stitch in his side. Midnight treks through the woods aren’t his usual workout regime. _Nothing_ is his usual workout regime, and it’s starting to show in how he’s huffing and puffing along behind Actual Popstar Turned Woodsman Harry Styles.

“Any minute now! Just have to power through,” Harry says brightly, and Nick watches helplessly as Harry gets caught in yet another low branch overhanging the river. Nick’s at a point in his life where watching his best friend get his antlers caught in tree limbs has almost completely lost its entertainment value, and that’s a bit sad. He really needs to find new friends. Harry squawks in dismay, flailing around, but there isn’t much Nick can do to help him.

Nick gamely yells, “Power through, Haz!” and leans against the nearest tree to catch his breath.

In hindsight, yelling in the forest at night probably isn’t on. Nick learns that really quickly when something cold and wet wraps around his neck, pulls him back against the trunk so tightly he can’t breathe, can’t move at all. He tries to call for Harry, but it comes out as a weak sort of wheezing.

“You don’t look very much like a monster slayer,” says someone in his ear, and Nick does his absolute best not to piss himself.

So that’s how he meets Louis. First impressions are everything.

* * *

 

The problem with Harry, Louis thinks a bit sourly as he squeezes his arms tight around the trespasser’s neck, is that Louis can never stay mad at him for any length of time. He can’t even ignore Harry’s distressed whimpers long enough to strangle who he’s pretty sure is Nick Grimshaw, has to give up on that just to go and unknot some branches from whatever stupid head ornament Harry’s wearing this time, except-

“Did you get these surgically attached?” Louis asks, incredulous and grudgingly impressed as he tugs at the bone and velvet of Harry’s antlers, but Harry just coos like an idiot, gently shakes his antlers free of Louis’ grip and wraps him in a doofy bear hug, drags him up until his feet aren’t even touching the riverbank.

Louis allows the embrace, but he’s focusing most of his attention on Nick Grimshaw standing behind him, Nick _actual_ Grimshaw. Soul irreversibly attached to this riverbed or not, even Louis knows who Nick Grimshaw is- god knows Harry’s talked about him more than e-fucking-nough over the past few years. What Louis can’t figure out is what Nick Grimshaw is doing _here_ , in _Louis’_ river.

He can’t stop using the full name in his head either, internal monologue just a great big echo of _Nick Grimshaw, Nick Grimshaw. Nick Grimshaw._

Harry gives one last unnecessarily large squeeze and then lets Louis drop back to the shallow muddy water with a splash. “I got cursed,” he says brightly, goofiest fucking grin on his face until Louis can’t help but laugh.

“Don’t sound so down about it, Haz.”

They stand there for a moment, smiling at each other stupidly until Nick nervously clears his throat.

* * *

Nick’s still sort of stuck on how he almost just died at the hands of Harry’s monster friend. There are dark circles popping up in his vision, and he doesn’t _mean_ to clear his throat, but also he’d just been nearly half-strangled, thanks.

Harry and the monster turn to look at him in eerie unison, Harry still grinning like an idiot and Louis staring at Nick with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

He doesn’t look much like a monster, except for how he does.

Nick can’t even put his finger on it really- if he snapped a photo and sent it to Gillian she’d probably just say something like _bit young for you but good one_. He’s naked. That’s odd, but certainly not monstrous. He’s wet, but they’re practically standing in a river.

He doesn’t blink, and it feels like staring down all the things Nick’s ever thought might be creeping along behind him in the dark.

“So this is Louis,” Harry says, completely oblivious to the Old West type showdown going on around him. “He’s my best friend.”

Nick massages his throat gingerly and grimaces. “Charmed.”

In the meantime, Harry’s digging around in his pockets, and he lets out a triumphant little bleat when he pulls out the small framed picture he brought and shoves it at Louis. There’s a moment where the river behind them surges up and Nick can barely hear himself think over the rushing water, then Louis takes the picture from Harry and examines it carefully.

“‘s nice,” he says softly, grinning down at what Nick knows to be a framed photo of Harry’s new album cover in miniature. Signed, even.

“Wanted you to have it, since you can’t leave the river to come see.” Harry butts his antlers bashfully at Louis’ bare shoulder and Nick does his best not to make gagging noises. Teenagers. Honestly.

As if on cue, Louis turns to glare at him right as Nick’s mid-eyeroll. “And what’ve you brought?” he asks sharply, eyes scanning Nick’s body like he’s picking out which limb to hack off if Nick forgot the offering bit.

His pride barely lets him do it, but Nick manages to pull the old id card from around his neck and drop it at Louis’ feet.

“A picture of yourself,” Louis says, unimpressed as he kicks at the badge with one muddy foot.

“Harry gave you a picture of himself as well!” It’s a bit not the same, probably, but also it sort of is. “It’s from when I landed my dream job. It counts.”

Louis’ nose scrunches up in distaste and Harry’s eyes are darting between the two of them nervously, his whole body poised as if he’s going to dart into the woods if things don’t work out. “ _I_ decide what counts,” Louis snaps, and he sounds awfully petulant for a thousands of years old river spirit or whatever Harry’d said he is, in Nick’s opinion. However, he does grab the badge with his toes and kick it up into the air, catch it with one hand and drape it around his own neck so the little photo Nick is peering up from near Louis’ navel. “It’s good enough for now,” he relents, fingers running over the laminated photo.

Harry beams and Nick lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

The rest of the visit is a lot of Harry falling in the river and Nick standing as far back as he can while still keeping sight of the two of them dashing around like idiots. If Louis watches him a bit too closely to be considered friendly, Nick pretends not to notice.

* * *

The airport is busy and there are people snapping pictures of Harry and of Nick and of Harry-and-Nick everywhere. Harry hugs him tight, slips a piece of paper into his pocket so obviously that Nick wonders if he’s _trying_ to set the gossip mags on fire.

“Take care of him, please,” mumbles Harry, weepy already.

Nick rolls his eyes, glad Harry’s still wrapped around him so he won’t see. “Take care of _yourself_ , popstar.” Nick sort of doubts anything could hurt whatever Louis is- and they’d had that talk, Nick asking, “So, what sort of monster was he meant to be anyway?” and Harry, blinking at him like he couldn’t comprehend how thick Nick was being, saying, “Well, he’s a river, isn’t he?”- but Harry’s-

Well, Harry.

As if to prove Nick’s point, Harry knocks his luggage over when he finally lets go of Nick. He says, “Oh no,” so morosely that Nick has to laugh or else he might actually, stupidly cry with how much he’s going to miss him while he’s away prancing around the world in flowery shirts.

“I’ll watch after your creepy little goldfish, alright? Text me when you land.”

“Promise,” Harry says, so serious that Nick can’t help but nod along, even though he isn’t very keen at all on returning to the river, especially by himself. Harry bites his lip nervously, that _want to ask you something and I know you’ll say yes but I still feel bad_ expression he’s so good at.

“Out with it, Styles.”

He produces a large embroidery needle from his coat pocket, and Nick wants to scold him for leaving sharp things in his clothes, but he’s also just realized where Harry’s going with this. “ _Haz_ ,” he says disapprovingly, grimacing.

“Please,” Harry begs softly, too-wide eyes watering up a bit. “I’ve never left him so long before, and I worry about him all the time as it is. I just need to know you’ll go-”

Nick cuts him off with a great put-upon sigh. “ _Fine_ , Styles, just name your terms.”

“Once a week,” Harry says immediately, and Nick can see him trying to keep his smug dimple hidden. “Once a week, you’ll visit the river, until the tour’s over. Swear it.”

“I swear it,” Nick says, and watches while Harry pricks the pad of his own thumb with the needle and then hands it off to Nick to do the same. He does, makes sure to exaggerate his pained gasp just so Harry feels a _bit_ bad about pulling Nick into a blood bond over someone who tried to _strangle_ him, then they mash their thumbs together. Where the blood mingles it feels like burning, and Harry’s voice echoes, realer than a memory, in Nick’s head. _Once a week._

When the pain subsides, Harry beams at him, watery-eyed and red-nosed (Nick refrains from making a Rudolph the Reindeer joke just by the skin of his teeth) and clasps Nick’s hands to his chest in one of those really-need-to-learn-to-hold-it-back-in-public-Harry-Styles shows of affection. “Watch after yourself, too? I know he can be sort of-”

“A dick,” Nick supplies helpfully.

“A _handful_ ,” Harry corrects, patting Nick’s pocket with the paper in it, a gentle reminder. “He’s really good though. Like, once you get to know him.”

Nick doesn’t much plan on getting to know Louis, but he’s not going to tell Harry that before he jets off for three months. “We’ll all watch after ourselves and each other,” Nick says, holding his hand up in what he guesses is supposed to be some sort of scout’s honor type gesture. “Now go on before you miss your flight.”

Harry’s face goes wobbly for a moment before he sadly butts his antlers against Nick’s chest, makes a strange, heart-broken little honking noise that Nick can’t bear to listen to.

“Niall!” he calls, just shy of frantic. “Niall, come get your frontman!”

Harry’s cheerful guitar player bounds over from where he’d been chatting up a baggage claims worker. He wraps a firm hand around the thickest bit of Harry’s right antler and drags him away, giving Nick a thumbs up over his shoulder.

“See you, Grim! Harry, stop fuckin’ cryin’, you sound like a farm animal-”

Nick’s always liked Niall. He washes the burnt mixture of his and Harry’s blood off his hand in the nearest restroom and heads home, doing his best to ignore the bondwords knocking around in his head.

* * *

Nick forgets the paper until six days later when he’s pulling on the same jacket to go for his first solo visit with Louis. Harry’s voice has gotten louder and louder, more insistent until Nick’s got a pounding headache and the only thought he can really manage is a vague echo of _Once a week._

The note is on actual honest-to-god stationary with little fawns in the corners. Nick suspects Harry had it special-made.

_How to handle ❤❤❤Louis❤❤❤ _

  * _be sincere_
  * _don’t laugh at him (unless he wants you to)_
  * _bring him gifts_
  * _remember that he’s good_



Nick frowns at the list. He’d been hoping for something more helpful like _“if he tries to strangle you again, poke him in his left eye.”_ Useful things like that.

Nothing doing, apparently, so Nick does a quick search around his flat for something personal he doesn’t mind giving away. He settles on a little red string bracelet Alexa gave him for Christmas a few years back. He’s never worn it, but he also never threw it away which seems personal enough for Nick.

* * *

Louis doesn’t show himself.

Nick arrives at sundown and sits on the bank while the light fades, worrying the bracelet between his fingers, and Louis is nowhere to be seen. There’s a great big rock in the center of the river, some trees Harry would probably think are interesting and Instagram with a vague unrelated caption, more crickets chirping than Nick ever really cares to hear at one time, and no Louis. Nick even texts Harry a string of wave emojis and question marks, but eventually even stringing together the most random, least informative series of tiny pictures gets old and Nick pulls up Candy Crush instead. He’ll give it an hour, he thinks. That should be enough of a try to appease the blood pact, even if he never actually sees Louis at all.

It turns out he doesn’t need to worry about not seeing Louis, because the minute the tinny game music fills the air, Nick feels water dripping down the back of his neck. His whole body freezes, spine going coil-tight.

“Is that a game?” Louis asks, sounding curious in spite of himself, leaning over Nick’s shoulder and dripping, dripping, dripping.

Nick swallows down his panic and tries for casual. “Candy Crush Saga,” he says coolly, holding his phone away from Louis’ watery hands.

“Oh,” Louis says, still leaning over Nick’s shoulder and watching the screen, trying to sound uninterested and failing spectacularly. “Sounds stupid,” he adds when Nick doesn’t say anything else.

Nick ignores that as well and holds the red bracelet over his shoulder for Louis to take. He does, after a moment, and he doesn’t say anything about it, just slips it around his own wrist before settling on the ground a few feet away, between Nick and the creek, watching.

Nick leaves less than half an hour later after Louis huffs “ _Fine_ ” out of nowhere and stands up, angrily stomping off into the river.

When Harry texts him later that night asking how his visit went, Nick sends back a cheery _well as could be expected!_

* * *

The second visit is not exactly better or worse, but it is longer, which Nick supposes could count as progress if he turned his head sideways and squinted. The blood pact had flared up early in the morning, waking him up with what felt like Harry shouting _ONCE A WEEK_ in his ear.

He gets dressed- waterproof boots, fall apart jeans, same old jacket he’s worn both times- and then remembers the offering.

 _going to run out of personal items_ , he texts Harry.

Harry sends back a running horse and a sad face which is not helpful or relevant, so Nick goes into the kitchen and pulls out one of his oldest mugs- the first one he got after he moved into his own flat, he thinks. It’s not his _favorite_ but it is a comfort, something he’s so used to seeing when he opens his cabinets that it looks a bit strange actually sitting out on the counter for once.

Nick stares at it for a long time, the chip on the side and the wonky handle that’s too small for his fingers anyway. It shouldn’t feel like giving something up when he gently wraps it in paper napkins and puts it in his bag, but it kind of does all the same.

* * *

 

Louis is waiting this time, Nick’s flashlight beam catching him as he crawls up onto the bank.

“Hullo,” Nick says, giving his best _you don’t make me nervous at all and I am here by choice_ smile as he watches the water slough down Louis’ body, leaving a wet trail in his path as he makes his way to Nick.

He holds his hand out expectantly, and Nick almost wants to laugh because Louis looks like a grumpy, demanding child, flexing his fingers impatiently for Nick’s offering. Nick fishes around in his bag and then hands Louis the mug, pulling away quickly before Louis can get him too wet.

“It’s not much,” Nick hedges, “but I’ve had it forever. I think it was a gift from my sister when I went off to uni.”

Louis hums, turns the mug in his hands- his fingers fit the handle, Nick notices with vague interest. He finally looks up at Nick, hesitantly approving. “It smells like tea.”

“Well, it’s held a lot of tea in its time,” Nick says, defensive. “I did wash it the last time I used it if that’s what you’re getting at.” Nick’s fairly sure he washed it. A hard eighty percent sure.

Louis just blinks at him, unimpressed. “I like tea,” he says, quiet and frowning. “Harry used to bring me tea all the time.”

“Oh.” Nick feels a bit stupid. “I could- I could bring you tea, if you wanted. Next time I come.”

It takes a moment, but Louis eventually shrugs, says, “Whatever.”

The grass is a little dewy when Nick takes a seat, and it gets worse when Louis sits as well, like the ground gets soaked through the moment he sits across from Nick. Louis pretends to examine his fingernails while Nick pulls out his phone and fucks around, and it’s mostly quiet for fifteen minutes, until Louis clears his throat.

“So what’s that stupid game about?” he asks, not looking at Nick, voice offhand like he doesn’t actually care. Nick has to bite the inside of his cheek so he won’t smile.

“It’s a bit like- kind of reminds me of Tetris, I guess. You just have to crush the blocks.” He finds the app and loads it up, turning his phone slightly so Louis can see the screen. “Here, watch-”

The watching lasts all of three minutes before Louis _tsks_ and grabs Nick’s phone, scrambling away to sit nearer to the river and play the game by himself.

* * *

"You don’t have to keep coming by."

It’s only the third time Nick’s visited since Harry went on tour. The second had lasted about three hours, the approximate lifespan of Nick’s phone battery with Louis marathoning Candy Crush. Aside from the cheesy electronica music and game sound effects, they didn’t make a sound. For the entire three hours.

Nick’s prepared this time, though, ignores Louis’ perpetual frown and slings his bag off his shoulder. He pulls out a waterproof picnic blanket and lays it out on the riverbank, then sits and digs around for the key to his get-along-with-Louis plan. It starts with a thermos of tea, which he tosses to Louis without bothering to see if he catches it.

He does, and he looks weirdly uncertain, standing knee-deep in the river and watching Nick with open distrust. He takes a few halting steps forward, hands twisting nervously at the thermos cap.

“If you’re going to stay, at least let me play that game again,” he says, holding out one hand expectantly. He steps even closer until he’s mostly out of the water, standing over Nick and dripping on him while Nick wrinkles his nose and brushes the droplets off his blanket.

Instead of handing Louis his phone, Nick drops a gift-wrapped box into his open palm. Louis stares at it, makes no move to open it while Nick sits with his arms crossed over his knees, a bit nervous, though he isn’t sure why. It’s just a stupid present, like the mug and the badge and the thermos of tea. No big deal.

"I’m not a charity case," Louis says stiffly, still holding the gift up in his slack hand like he might drop it into the river at any moment. “It’s not meant to be expensive things.”

"Good thing it’s not charity then, isn’t it?" Nick shoves the gift closer until it’s pinned to Louis’ bare chest.

They’re testing each other, just shy of circling like wild dogs.

Nick finally gives in, sort of, figuring his patience probably doesn’t stand a chance against an ancient river _thing_ like Louis. “Just think of it as an offering like anything else. A gift between friends. To keep you from waterlogging my phone every time I come out here.”

Louis’ nose scrunches up at the word _friends_ , but he wraps both arms around the gift and the thermos, hugs them a bit tighter to his chest and looks away from Nick.

"What is it?" he asks, sounding almost shy, and Nick spots his fingers rubbing the velvet ribbon the gift wrap boutique owner had insisted on. Nick wonders if Louis’ ever touched velvet- if Louis’ ever gotten a present that looked like a proper present.

Surely he has; surely Harry’s given him real gifts.

"You’ve got to open it, haven’t you? That’s half the fun of a present."

He doesn’t miss the way Louis’ eyebrows draw together for a fraction of a second, confused. Louis’ quick to school it into disdain, though, scoffs, “That’s stupid. Sounds like a load of wasted time to me.”

Nick doesn’t bother to answer, just waits for Louis to get on with it. Even though it looks like it physically pains him to do it, Louis finally makes his way back to his great stone in the center of the river, settles down, places the present delicately in his lap and examines it for a moment, curious, like he’s savoring it but doesn’t want Nick to know.

Nick’d pretty much expected Louis to decimate the painstakingly ornate gift-wrapping, so he’s surprised when Louis carefully searches for the paper seam, inserts his finger in the gap and gently tears the tape away, leaving the wrapping intact. He struggles with the bow, finally manages to untie it and folds the ribbon over his own thigh, peels the loose paper away and sets it on the stone beside him. He’s taking his sweet time with it, and Nick can’t tell if he’s trying to be irritating or if he’s honestly just never gotten a present before.

There’s another box once all the paper’s gone, and Louis glares up at Nick like he thinks it’s some sort of trick.

"It’s _in_ the box,” Nick says, exasperated, but with some inexplicable funny feeling in his chest he refuses to think of as endearment.

Louis blinks at him, drops his gaze back to the box, and it’s a bit hard to tell but Nick would swear Louis’ blushing. He opens the box with a lot less care than how he’d unwrapped the paper, tearing the end and dumping the contents out into his lap without much ceremony.

"Er," says Louis, holding the empty box in his hands and staring down at the jumble of things between his knees, "I think I’ve broken it."

Nick snorts, steels himself to get up and slog through the cold water to reach Louis’ seat, even though it means getting his jeans soaked to the thigh. He picks the old gray Gameboy up, plucks the scattered batteries from between Louis’ crossed legs and starts fitting them into the open back. “‘s not broken, it’s just old- sorry about that, by the way. I don’t know anything about new games. This was mine when I was a kid. Fished it out of my old bedroom when I visited home.”

Louis is staring up at him intently, eyes narrowed. “You went all the way home- just to get _that_?” Louis asks. Clarifies, “For _me_?”

"Um," Nick says, because when Louis says it like _that_ it does sound a bit excessive. Nick ignores whatever feelings _that_ is trying to give him in favor of fitting the plastic ziploc bag around the game system, sealing it carefully with his forefinger and thumb.

Louis’ face softens for the barest second before he tilts his chin up and holds his hand out imperiously. “Give it to me- it’s mine, isn’t it? You gave it to me.”

"Alright, Jesus, here." Nick laughs, dropping the huge brick of a game into Louis’ hand, flinching away when their fingers touch. He still half-expects Louis to be incorporeal despite their first encounter, but he’s solid and wet and not as cold as Nick imagined.

Nick wades back to the bank and settles on his blanket, grimacing at the discomfort from his soaked jeans. He pretends to fiddle around on his phone, but he’s really watching Louis like a hawk. It feels like a victory when Louis takes a huge gulp from the thermos and doesn’t spit the tea out everywhere.

* * *

 

“You used to talk a lot of shit on your radio show about being busy on the weekends, but you sure spend a lot of time here,” Louis says after a while. They're both on the bank and the Gameboy is sitting between them, batteries already run down. Nick has more in his backpack, but he's sort of enjoying Louis actually having to talk to him. Even if he's sort of a jackass.

Nick blinks, surprised. “How do you know what I talk about on my radio show?”

There’s a tense moment where Louis seems to realize he’s given something away and Nick can’t do anything but wait to see if he’ll follow through.

“Harry,” says Louis after a moment. “He was like, proper obsessed with you when he was a teenager-”

“Ages ago, then,” Nick cuts in sarcastically, and Louis nearly laughs.

“He’d bring this stupid portable radio and make me listen to your show. And then he _met_ you,” Louis says, like a swear word.

Nick’s face feels a little hot.

“God, he’d never shut the fuck up about you. It was like- everything was you, all the time. He didn’t even bring the radio anymore, because he got the real thing, _all the time_.” He snorts. “Leave it to Harry bloody Styles to hook up with his teenage celebrity crush the minute he sets foot in London.”

“Hang on,” says Nick, feeling more than a little out of sorts. “Hook up?”

“Yeah.” Louis looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. “Like, sex, you know?”

“I haven’t- with Harry-”

Nick’s eyes might be going, or Louis might actually look embarrassed.

“I thought-” he starts, and he’s flushed all the way down to his chest. Nick tries not to think it’s cute. “When he went to London the first time, he came back and said he’d met you, and then he said he’d- like, for the first time, done- sex. So I thought-”

“Um.” Nick’s very eloquent. He talks for a living. “No. Not, uh, not me.”

“Oh,” Louis says uncomfortably. “I thought it was.”

“Well.”

“Yeah.”

* * *

“Is that why you tried to strangle me?”

“Hmm?” Louis is doing something to Nick’s hair that might be tiny braids or many small intricate knots. It’s hot out and the cool water from Louis’ fingers feels nice; Nick’ll worry about consequences later.

“Because you thought I’d slept with Harry?”

Louis tugs, sharp, at Nick’s scalp, and Nick’s eyes fly open to peer up at him. He’s looking down at Nick with an unimpressed expression. “Hardly.”

“Care to explain?”

He tugs again, softer this time. “I didn’t expect you. Harry’s never brought anyone around before.”

 _Never is a long time_ , Nick thinks.

* * *

The next time Nick comes, he brings Louis a portable radio that’d been laying around in his spare room for ages and a solar-powered battery charger he found on the internet. Louis tries very hard not to look delighted, but he doesn’t exactly manage.

“I’m not going to listen to your shitty radio show,” he says, grinning so wide Nick can see all his pointed little teeth.

It’s reflex when Nick laughs, so loud and sudden he puts a hand over his mouth to stifle it. “Didn’t ask you to, did I?” he says, nudging Louis with his shoulder. “That’s supposed to be waterproof, by the way, but don’t like, drag it to the bottom of the river or anything.”

Louis raises a single, unimpressed eyebrow at him before flouncing away to store his new treasures with his hoard. There’s an old gnarled tree, nearly dead, with its great tangled roots dipping into the river, and Nick watches with interest as Louis ducks into a wide hollow gap at the base, comes back out empty handed. He catches Nick watching and scowls. “That’s private. If I catch you near it, I’ll drown you.”

“Noted.” They have a tiny standoff before Louis apparently decides he trusts Nick enough to step away from his treasure tree.

“Are we ever going to talk about that newspaper ad?” Nick asks casually when they’re laying side by side on the bank, tinny Pokemon music filling the air. 

“No,” Louis says decisively, elbowing Nick in the side during a particularly frantic bout of button pushing.

“Alright.”

* * *

“We could, you know. Talk about it. If you ever needed to.”

“I know. I just don't feel like it.”

“Alright.”

Nick can’t stop thinking about the list Harry left him- _remember that he’s good._

"Thank you, though," Louis says after a long while, and he sounds like it hurts to say it. "For offering."

* * *

“I was thinking,” Nick says, half asleep where they’re both spread out on Louis’ big rock, sun beating down hot on Nick’s bare chest and Louis’ bare everything, “you could use my phone to talk to Harry if you’d like. I got a waterproof case for it.” Nick doesn’t like to think about how many aspects of his life he’s gotten waterproofed in the last few months.

“Harry’s busy,” Louis says, shrugging, but his shoulder is tense when it brushes against Nick’s.

Nick presses, careful. “He’d still like to talk to you. He misses you, you know, halfway round the world.”

Louis makes the tiniest little _hmph_ noise before disappearing into the creek, leaving Nick on the rock. It’s nearly an hour before he returns, and Nick’s properly sunburnt.

“Done pitching a fit?” Nick asks smoothly.

“That’s really condescending for a lobster,” Louis shoots back, hauling himself back onto the rock and sending waves of cold water washing over everything. He kneels for a moment, blinking thoughtfully at Nick who’s trying to shake all the water off his body, before collapsing on top of him.

He’s oddly light. He settles, drenching wet, arms crossed on Nick’s chest and chin resting on top, grinning down at Nick like he knows just how uncomfortable this is. Nick scrunches his nose and scowls up at him, but doesn’t move to shake him off. He probably couldn’t, anyway, unless Louis wanted to move. And Louis’ rivercool skin feels nice on Nick’s budding sunburn.

Nick wonders if Louis did that on purpose.

Louis sticks out his tongue and pinches Nick’s cheek _hard_ so Nick thinks probably not.

“Why don’t you want to talk to him?” Nick asks later, when Louis’ starfished over him and nearly asleep, if sleeping is something he can even do.

Louis lolls his arm over the side of the rock, dipping his fingers in the water, bringing them up and trailing the cold drops over Nick’s face. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to him,” he says carefully, watching with interest as the water rolls down Nick’s forehead and cheeks. “It just- it doesn’t feel real. I don’t want to talk to Harry halfway across the world. I want to talk to Harry _here_.”

It would sound like splitting hairs if Nick didn’t know exactly what Louis meant. There’s a difference between watching Harry bumbling around on his shaky fawn legs, hearing him laugh, seeing his ridiculous facial expressions- a difference between that and reading a text, knowing it’s Harry on the other end. Answering a call and hearing a digital approximation of his voice. Sometimes, Nick knows, it’s lonelier getting nearly the real thing.

“That’s fair, I guess,” is all Nick says, reaching up hesitantly and touching a fingertip to the furrowed line between Louis’ eyebrows. “Can I at least tell him you said hello?”

“You can tell him I’m really sorry,” Louis says earnestly, and Nick frowns.

“Sorry for what?”

In lieu of answering, Louis wraps his arms around Nick’s chest and rolls them into the river.

* * *

“How did you meet Harry?” Nick asks on another lazy afternoon at the river. If he were anyone else, he’d have a great tan by now. Mostly he’s just perpetually sunburnt with a few more freckles than usual. The tabloids have started to notice.

“He just showed up one day,” Louis mumbles sleepily, swishing his feet through the water. “Got lost on a camping trip or something- gangly little kid, crying and everything. I felt bad.”

“So you popped out the river naked and that just went over really well?” Nick asks uncertainly, turning to squint at Louis through his sunglasses.

“Well, he was a weird kid.”

There’s a pause and then they both laugh, Nick snorting violently and Louis curling in on himself, clutching his stomach. After they quiet down aside from the occasional giggle, Nick turns on his belly to watch Louis better. “So before Harry, what’d you do?”

Louis wrinkles his nose up, scowls at the sky. “Why are you being so fucking nosy today?”

 _Pushed too far_ , Nick thinks grimly, then, _In for a penny._

“Just curious. So?”

“Nothing,” Louis says tersely, sitting up and sliding into the water. He doesn’t swim away though, just floats, watching Nick carefully.

“You did nothing? Like, forever, before Harry showed up?” Nick laughs, sure Louis is joking, because the alternative is just- well. “That’s ridiculous. You’d be dead lonely.”

“It wasn’t always lonely,” Louis says defensively, curling in on himself that much tighter, face sinking half under the water. He looks _small_ , and Nick wonders if it’s a trick of the light or a river thing, if he’s really shrinking. For a split second, he dips under the water and Nick thinks he’s gone, but he resurfaces, further away from the rock, from Nick. “I used to get visited by _loads_ of people. Got offerings and...and people’d come from all over to hear me-” He’d sounded wistful, but he cuts off abruptly, cutting his gaze to Nick and frowning like Nick’d tricked him somehow. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

Nick’s interested now, though, and he shifts carefully closer to the edge of the big rock. “Hear you what?” he prods, gentle-gentle-gentle because Louis is a ball of wet thorns at the best of times.

Louis doesn’t pull Nick into the water or raise the river and sweep Nick away in the current, so Nick’s counting it as a win. He holds Nick’s stare for a long moment before shrugging uncomfortably, looking out over the reedy marsh, the grassy bank. “I used to sing,” he says softly, steadfastly ignoring Nick. “When the weather was nice, I’d sing, and people would come from all over just to listen.”

Nick wants to ask _what happened_ but he feels as if he’s pushed his luck with Louis more than enough for one day. “Which gym are you on?” he asks instead, nodding at the Gameboy Louis left on the edge of the rock.

Louis perks up right away, and Nick doesn’t miss how the river rises just a bit, runs that bit faster. “I found this tower where everything’s dead,” he says, hauling himself onto the rock and switching the game on excitedly, tapping the A button like it’ll start the game faster. Nick pulls his knees up to his chest so he can hide his stupidly fond grin.

“There’s this huge thing blocking the next place I need to go though- a Snerlox or something,” Louis babbles, pulling up his saved file and scooting a bit closer to Nick so he can see the screen.

It’s nice, is the thing. Nick settles on his back and Louis settles bellydown beside him, rattles on about his Pokemon adventures while the sun warms their rock and the water flows around them. Nick bites his tongue so he won’t spoil anything, tries not to laugh when Louis gets frustrated- “These _fucking_ tentacle things, I _fucking_ swear-”

“Did you know people make porn about tentacles?” Nick mumbles, half-asleep and chuckling when the wild-Pokemon battle music starts up again.

Louis turns to blink down at him, considering. “I don’t know if I like that,” he says eventually, turning back to his game like that’s the final say in the matter.

“I watched it once. Not really my thing, but I can see the appeal, I guess.”

Louis mutters something that _might_ be _weirdass tentacle fucker_ , but that’s neither here nor there. Nick dozes off before he decides if he’s offended.

* * *

He wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later with a load of suction cups attached to his face.

“What the _fuck_ -” he means to scream, except then he’s got a mouthful of tentacles and he’s mostly gagging.

Louis is watching him curiously, half in and half out of the river, hair sopping wet like he’s been submerged. There’s an octopus on Nick’s face.

“Are you into it?” Louis asks, eyeing Nick uncertainly. “You seemed sort of interested when you were asleep and it was touching your neck and stuff but then you woke up and-”

“Get. It. _Off._ ” Nick does his very best to remain calm while Louis hauls himself out of the water and starts pulling the suckers one by one off Nick’s face.

“Oh,” Louis laughs, “they’ve left little marks.”

Nick does not find that funny. He’s caught between horrified and seething mad and maybe, at some point in the future, thinking this is the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s a bit miffed no one but Harry would believe him if he told them.

* * *

_the tours been extended. whole nother month_

Nick stares at the text for a long time. Twenty minutes pass and he can’t think of a single fucking thing to say. All he can hear in his head is Louis’ quiet voice, an echo of _“Harry’s busy”_ just as strong and insistent as Harry’s blooded _“Once a week.”_

_your best friend put an octopus on my face today._

Nick sends the text and settles back against his pillows, switches to his photo archive and flips through the pictures he’d tried to take of Louis struggling with the octopus. They’d all turned out strange, blurred by more than motion. Louis’ skin shone so brightly it flared the lense, but Nick picks out one where he can sort of see the octopus suctioning itself to the side of Louis’ head. Before he can send it to Harry, Harry texts him back:

_im so sorry :(((((((( i can ask someone else to go visit him instead and let you out of your bond im really sorry_

The message should be a great big sigh of relief- Nick should feel like some sort of burden’s been lifted, probably. Instead, he frowns and quickly sends the octopus picture to Harry, captioning it _dont worry styles. things turned out alright in the end._

Harry sends back a string of laughing emojis and a few octopuses for good measure, and Nick grins, burying his face in his pillow.

He’s just talked himself into another month’s worth of visiting Louis, and he doesn’t feel like groaning or whining about it or bashing his head against the bed frame at all.

Weird.

* * *

The problem is, Nick’s the one who has to tell Louis.

The problem is, Nick literally can’t seem to make his mouth work, can’t say, _“So, Harry’s not going to be back for a bit longer, yet.”_ Louis is positively vibrating with excitement, spitting great spouts of water into Nick’s face and wheeling his body through the water in dolphin-like twists that make Nick’s stomach flip. Every time he stops for a rest, he finds Nick sitting on the bank and sends him a dazzling smile, eyes crinkled up at the corner and hair plastered to his face.

“Bet you’re real bummed Harry’s coming back next week,” he says during one breather, slithering up onto the shore so his belly’s covered in dark mud. “Really going to cut into your visits, having Haz around all the time.” Nick stays very, very still, can’t quite meet Louis’ eye. He can’t even blame Louis for misreading his discomfort. “Cheer up, Grimshaw, I’m sure Harry’ll let you tag along sometimes, if I ask. You’re not nearly as much of a dick as I’d expected.”

“Louis.” And god, his voice sounds strangled and panicked, and Louis blinks at him, guard up immediately. His mouth tightens into a thin line, but he looks away from whatever expression Nick can’t keep off his face- it feels like pity, and Nick hopes it isn’t because Louis would never forgive him.

Louis rolls onto his back, carefully carefree even though the muscles in his shoulders have gone tense. “I wonder what he’s bringing me back,” Louis says airily, but Nick can see his jaw clenching. “One thing from every city is what he said, but you know Harry- probably a hundred things from every-”

_“Louis.”_

The river is doing something odd, flowing in fits and starts. Nick’s phone is clutched in his hands, text to Harry still waiting for a response.

_i can’t tell him harry. its got to be you._

It’s quiet, Nick’s measured breathing and Louis’ buzzing nerves, the everpresent river bumping unsteadily along.

_ok_

The breath leaves Nick in a great rush, and he looks back to Louis, caked-on mud drying and flaking off his chest and thighs.

“Hey, come over here a minute,” Nick says, impressed that his voice sounds so steady and bright.

Louis snorts, peers at him upside down and a bit cross-eyed. “Fuck you, you come over here.”

“It’s _wet_ over there,” Nick grumbles, but he’s already standing up and walking over to settle by Louis so it’s a moot point anyway. He picks his words carefully, feels a bit like guessing his way through landmines. “Harry wants to talk to you.”

Louis sits up so quickly Nick’s head spins a bit. His eyes are wide and his head’s whipping from side to side like he expects Harry to pop out from behind the nearest tree. “Why? When?” he demands, finally settling the full force of his slightly hysterical gaze on Nick.

“Now, actually,” says Nick, shaking his phone in Louis’ face by way of explanation. Louis crawls closer to him, leans his chin heavily on Nick’s shoulder to watch him dial Harry’s number. He’s not protesting the phone call at least, so Nick figures he can probably tell something’s off.

It’s set to speaker, and Nick feels the jolt that runs through Louis’ body at the sound of Harry’s voice, tinny over the thin connection. _“Hiiiii.”_

Nick’s not prepared for Louis scrambling over his shoulder, tearing the phone out of his hand and cradling it in his palms, protectively close to his chest.

“Harry,” he says, so warmly that Nick has to turn away from it. His skin’s crawling with the conversation that’s coming, and he’s flashing back to school lessons, remembering phrases like _dramatic irony._ When Harry starts talking, Nick stares very hard at his own knees, the mud and wet patches on his clothes from Louis, anything so he won’t have to hear what’s happening.

It doesn’t help, is the thing.

“Extended,” Louis says, voice deceptively calm even though Nick can physically feel Louis shaking where his back is pressed to Nick’s shoulder.

The river is rising, roaring, foam-tipped breakers nearly reaching Nick’s feet on the bank. He swallows.

“Fine,” Louis snaps, and then Nick’s phone nails him in the side of the head. By the time Nick’s uncrossed his eyes and rubbed at his skull, Louis’ disappeared and the river is raging.

He wants to send _well done haz_ but he figures Harry already knows.

Twenty minutes later and the river is still raging, crashing off the bank, and Louis is tearing his treasure tree apart, great chunks of bark and splinters of wood coming off in his hands. It’s strange, how Nick keeps forgetting Louis isn’t human.

"He can’t spend his whole life here," Nick says softly, watching as Louis throws trinket after trinket into the river. "That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be with you all the time."

"Shut the fuck up." Louis’ voice is quiet and if Nick didn’t know better it might sound tearful. "Why don’t you just go ahead and fucking leave as well? It’s all people are good for."

"Could do, but then I’d miss this truly glorious tantrum you’re throwing right now, darling."

Louis snarls, a deep, wounded animal sound that raises the hair on the back of Nick’s neck. The framed album cover Harry gave him the first night Nick came is clutched in his hands, so tightly the glass is starting to spiderweb. Nick steels himself, approaches Louis carefully and pulls the frame out of his shaking hands.

"You’ll regret it, if you break it. You’re angry now, but he’s your best friend."

Louis lets him take the frame, and it’s like the fight goes out of him, shoulders slumping- the river level is sinking fast, barely moving at a trickle, and that’s disconcerting. Louis mumbles, “Please just go,” and for once, Nick listens.

* * *

The blood bond is gone but Nick wakes up early Saturday morning anyway, can’t go back to sleep no matter how hard he tries. There are about fifty sad animal emojis from Harry, and Nick can’t even find it in himself to feel frustrated with him.

He pulls on his wading boots and the watershield jacket he’d had to borrow from Greg (“What’s with all this hiking gear you’ve been after lately? Are you fucking a catalogue model again?”). It’s raining, which seems to fit the mood Nick’s expecting when he arrives at the river, thoroughly drenched and nearly freezing.

His offering is clutched tightly in his hand, and he’s somewhat surprised to see Louis on the bank. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Louis looked surprised to see him as well.

“Here you go, your highness,” Nick says, tossing Louis the key.

Louis catches it deftly, holds it gingerly between his forefinger and thumb. He doesn’t speak, but Nick can talk well enough for the both of them if he has to.

“It’s the spare key to my flat. I’m never going to use it and it’s not doing anyone any good tucked away in my kitchen drawer, so I figured you might like it. It’s proper personal and everything, just how you like.”

“I can’t,” Louis starts, and then pauses like he wasn't prepared to hear himself speak. “I can’t use this.”

“I know.”

Louis cradles the key to his chest for a moment before scrambling to his feet and across the river, going to the decimated treasure tree and gently placing the key inside. When he’s done, he crawls back out but doesn’t come back to Nick's side of the river.

“Harry feels really terrible about the tour,” Nick tries.

“I don’t want to talk about Harry.” Louis is tense, petulant, but not quite mean. The water level is lower than Nick’s ever seen it. When Louis crawls back into the ruins of the treasure tree, Nick sort of thinks, _Well, that’s that,_ and doesn’t much expect Louis to come back out. He does, though, a second later, clutching the Gameboy tightly.

Nick stares at it and Louis stares at him, and it’s a full minute before Nick manages to say, “You kept that, then?”

“Not because of you or anything,” Louis says quickly. “Just- it’s fun. It’s mine.”

“I gave it to you,” Nick echoes, smiling because he can’t help it.

Louis frowns thoughtfully. “Did you? I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter.” He’s a terrible liar. Nick thinks a river should be a better liar. He doesn’t say so.

Louis still hasn’t crossed back over, so Nick goes to him instead. The river is low enough that his knees barely get wet. If he let himself think about it, he’d be worried.

It’s strange, seeing Louis so still, the way he just stands there holding the game and watching Nick wade closer, watching even when Nick comes right up to tower over him. The thing is, Louis is really- something. Up close. Sharp teeth and wet skin and water-pale eyes aside, he’s just really-

“I think you’re really-” Nick starts, and sort of flounders because he doesn’t say things like _I think you’re really beautiful_ to humans, and he’s certainly not about to say it to Louis. “I know you’re upset with Harry,” is what he settles on, because that seems like a more important and comfortable conversation. “But he’s human. You’ve got all this time- thousands, millions of years, whatever- but this is it for him, you know? His dreams are coming true- cliche as that sounds. He won’t get another chance.”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it.” Louis doesn’t leave, though, just shifts a bit closer to the water like he needs it for comfort. When he sighs, it’s quiet, and Nick feels the wet exhale against his chest. “I don’t want him to give up on his dreams. I just want him to pick me. People always forget me. I hate being forgotten.”

When Louis drops his forehead softly against Nick’s chest, it still feels a bit like he’s been punched in the heart.

“He’s not- he isn’t not picking you. He’s trying to pick both!” Nick isn’t even sure how to explain it- how Harry texts him about Louis all the time, how he hasn’t sent anything but sad cat memes in days, how there’s a scar from a blood bond on Nick’s thumb because Harry cares that much. “I’m here because he didn’t want to leave you alone. Because he wanted a way to know you were alright while he was gone.”

Louis goes stiff for a moment, and then he peers up at Nick, calculating. “That the only reason you’re here?”

It’s almost laughable, and Nick rolls his eyes because he can’t do anything else. “The first month or so? Yeah. _You tried to strangle me.”_

“And now?” Louis prods slyly, digging his chin into Nick’s breastbone, failing to hide the world’s smuggest grin.

Nick can’t give him the satisfaction. “Thought we were talking about you and Harry.”

“We always talk about me and Harry.” Louis’ got a palm over Nick’s heart, must feel the way it’s been steadily picking up pace. “So Harry’s apparently not going to forget me- what about you? When he comes back, if I let him come back, are you just going to disappear?”

“Depends.” Nick’s so glad the radio presenter skillset is kicking in and he can talk even with his brain fogged over. “What’s in it for me, if I keep coming by?”

It should probably be more of a surprise when Louis surges up and kisses him. The feeling is strange- wet and cool but not necessarily unpleasant. If Nick were Harry, he’d probably be composing heartfelt lyrics about making out with rivers and dry humping small creeks. As it is, he’s Nick, so he just kisses Louis back.

The kiss wasn’t a surprise, but the drowning is a little unexpected. One moment Louis is pressed up against his front, enthusiastically biting at Nick’s mouth, and the next they’re both bowled over by the river violently overflowing, crashing up the bank and pulling Nick under with Louis clutched to his chest.

He can’t _breathe-_ the whole underwater thing doesn’t seem to concern Louis at all and he’s still got his tongue in Nick’s mouth. In some universe where Nick has gills, this would probably all be very endearing and romantic.

Mostly, in this universe, he’s just drowning.

At the last second before Nick actually blacks out, he sees, through the murky haze of the water, Louis blink his eyes open in surprise and sort of catch on to the fact Nick is dying a little bit.

He wakes up on the bank a while later, soaked, lungs burning, and all he can hear is Louis laughing.

“If you wanted to kill me, I don’t see why you waited this long,” Nick says morosely, barely getting the words out of his scratchy throat.

“Sorry,” Louis says, still laughing. He leans over Nick, dripping on him, and he’s smirking, can’t seem to stop giggling. “Just a bit out of practice is all.”

“Well, warn me next time. I’ll bring a snorkel.”

Louis calls him an idiot and sounds impossibly fond. The river has settled back down and the water level still isn’t quite as high as usual, but it is better. _Progress_ , Nick thinks.

* * *

_so i’ve got a plan sort of. to apologize to louis_

Nick can feel the beginnings of a truly incredible headache coming on, and Harry’s text doesn’t help.

_and i’m gonna need ur help probably_

It’s Harry, so it’s not like Nick didn’t see it coming.

_thanks in advance:)_

God, Nick’s life.

* * *

The first annual River Festival is on a Saturday. It’s sunny and warm and Nick’s so nervous he can barely breathe when he pulls off the side of the road near the trail that leads to the riverbank. There are a lot of cars. His heart’s in his throat, and there are _so many cars._

There are huge wicker baskets at the entrance, filled to the brim with tiny trinkets, well-loved personal items that constitute the price of admission. The river bank is covered in picnic blankets and music and people, more people than Nick ever had the guts to hope for. And there on the rock in the center of the river, wet and overwhelmed, is Louis. He spots Nick right away, wide eyes picking him out of the crowd of newcomers, and his face is priceless, mouth open in the tiniest, most disbelieving “o” Nick’s ever seen.

He’s on the bank by the time Nick makes his way over, standing with his arms hanging limply by his sides.

“Nick.”

Nick grins, can’t help himself. “Louis.” If all the people milling about think it’s strange that Louis’ naked, no one’s decided to comment or even, like, stare.

“What is this? Who are all these people?” Louis doesn’t sound angry, which is a plus, just shocked. Nick shrugs.

“If you’d been listening to my show for the past month instead of pouting about everything, maybe you’d know. It’s a music festival.”

“A music festival,” Louis repeats, dazed. “Here.”

“Just a small one. Few nobody indie bands. You might’ve heard of one or two of them. Thought this seemed like a nice place for it.”

He’s not surprised that Louis catches his meaning right away; he’s a clever thing. “Harry,” is all he says, and Nick nods, agreeing. “Harry.”

“Speaking of-” Nick pulls his offering from his pocket, a well-faded folded note handwritten on deer stationary.

Louis takes it eagerly, unfolds it and hungrily scans the words. Nick knows the moment he recognizes the handwriting, sees his eyes go wide and soft.

 _remember_ _that he’s good_ is the last line of the note, and Nick really doesn’t need the paper to remind him, but he thinks Louis might, sometimes.

They find Harry a bit later, after wandering the bank, zigzagging between festival goers and listening to acoustic sets. Harry’s nervous, letting out tiny half-muted bleats with every breath, but he’s also positively beaming, dimples out in full force and Nick can’t help thinking Louis never stood a chance.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Louis says, arms crossed tight over his chest. The tough act is a bluff, Nick knows, because Louis still has Harry’s note clutched in his fist.

“I wanted to,” Harry says, ducking his head shyly. The ridiculous silk scarf wrapped around his antlers slips off, but Louis catches it before it hits the ground. “I didn’t want you to think- I’m not going to forget about you, you know? You’re my best friend. I want to do things with you, every chance I get; I always do.”

Nick bites his lip so he won’t laugh at the blush on Louis cheeks or the way he’s rolling his eyes up so the moisture gathered won’t fall down his cheeks. “Don’t be a fucking sap, Harold,” he says, but his voice breaks and Harry’s wrapping him up in his gangly arms and Nick’s breathing what’s almost definitely the world’s biggest sigh of relief. As much as Louis wriggles and squirms, Harry just holds tighter, ignoring Louis’ protests- “Put me down, weird deer creature! Get _off_ me! Grimshaw, help!”

When Harry finally sets Louis back down, it’s as if they physically can’t stop smiling at each other like the fucking weirdos they are. Their creepy love stare-off is interrupted by Niall, who appears out of what Nick thinks might be actually literally nowhere.

“You’re real naked,” Niall says to Louis, the way someone else might say, “It’s sunny out.”

“You’re Niall,” Louis counters, shifty and nervous again just like that. Luckily, Niall _is_ Niall.

“You should sing with us. Harry says you’re good.”

Louis turns to glare at Harry and Harry stares pointedly somewhere three feet above Louis’ head.

Niall slings an arm around Louis’ neck, clothes soaking through immediately. “Come on, it’ll be fun!” he says as he literally drags Louis away to the makeshift stage on the riverside. Nick waves cheerily when Louis turns to make frantic grabby hands for him, ignores his cries for help because Niall usually knows best anyway.

“Thanks,” Harry says, gently butting his antlers against Nick’s chest.

Nick ignores the gratitude in favor of asking an important question. “You’re never going to get those removed, are you, Styles?”

“The magazines say they make me look sexy.”

“You’re literally ridiculous."

* * *

Nick knows, objectively, that the hastily thrown together festival is by no means the largest or most lucrative music gathering on the planet. It feels like it might be the best one, though, when the boys take the stage and drag Louis up with them. He's still starkers but the crowd is drunk and happy and into it, luckily. Or maybe it's not luck; maybe it's just Louis.

It’s impossible to look away from them- Harry’s strange antlered charisma, Zayn and Niall’s ridiculous bickering between songs, Liam looking like the world’s most concerned lumberjack bassist, and right there in the center of it all, looking like he’s never belonged anywhere else, Louis. The ramshackle stage is half-waterlogged and Niall nearly slips right off into the rushing river. It's good, though, somehow, with everyone sliding around and Louis laughing, singing, dancing, being a menace. There’s an uncomfortably large bubble of _fond_ swelling in Nick’s chest, and when he catches Louis’ eye during one of Zayn’s prolonged drum solos, Nick’s helpless against the huge grin on his face.

The crowd loves it. Nick loves it. If the happy, bubbling rage of the river is any indication, Louis loves it as well.

* * *

 

“It’s a shame,” Nick says after the set, carefully examining his fingernails and studiously not looking Louis in the eye, “that Harry doesn’t care for you at all. If this is the sort of thing he does for someone he’s forgetting, I can’t _imagine_ what he’d do for someone he liked.”

Louis squawks and shoves him, nearly knocks him into the river. “Don’t be a dick about it!” He steps closer, something sly in the turn of his mouth, curls his fingers in Nick’s shirt, barely dampening it at all. “Besides, he told me you helped put this all together. He said most of it was your idea.” There’s a wicked look on his face, clever and sharp and he’s grinning so wide, and Nick is so, so caught. “It’s almost like that’s the sort of thing someone who _cares_ about me would do.”

“All lies,” Nick says stubbornly, absently flicking a stray water droplet off Louis’ bare shoulder. “Ridiculous lies.”

Louis just drapes his arms around Nick’s neck, laughs, kisses him and doesn’t drown him this time. It’s progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have to be careful with those freshwater octopuses. thanks for your time.  
> check out the second part for useless extra stuff.


	2. i know a place where a body can hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a little more fucking around in this ridiculous universe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mainly because I talked to my darling beta about how sex would work in this universe and the ideas were. well. Like, what are the physics of fucking a river. Who knows.

* * *

The festival ends up getting the band- and by extension, their honorary member Louis- a lot of attention. Niall insists the influx of new fans are just there in the hopes of an all-nude photoshoot now that Louis has put the idea in everyone's heads, and secretly Nick is sure he's at least half-right. They don't go _full_ nude for the first major magazine cover they're offered, but there is a lot of artfully placed shrubbery and Liam desperately flailing in front of Louis' crotch because no one could convince him to stay half-submerged in the river long enough for the photos to be taken.

Another tour starts up, capitalizing on the media success of River Fest, but this time there aren't any blood bonds to be made. Nick doesn't need much incentive to hang around the river these days. Harry's got his smug frog face on when Nick goes to see the band off at the airport, so Nick just tells him how stupid he looks with his antler prongs covered in safety foam.

"It's the only way they'll let me on the plane now," Harry grumbles. "Said I'm a security hazard."

"You _fell_ on that hostess and one of your prongs went through her-"

"She's fine now!" Harry insists, a bit desperately. "She said it was alright."

Nick rolls his eyes. "Well, that's just 'cause you're Harry Styles, isn't it?" Harry levels him with a flat glare, but Nick just laughs. Harry's phone rings.

His eyes light up when he looks down at the screen, sees a blurry picture of Louis. He excuses himself from Nick and stumbles over to sit by the nearest wall, babbling animatedly and probably declaring his undying love and friendship for the thousandth time since the tour was announced.

They'd gotten Louis to agree to the phone pretty easily after they promised to let him put whatever games he wanted on it. Now there's barely an hour that goes by without Nick getting a ridiculous snapchat of a leaf or a particularly ugly fish (usually captioned, _found your twin :)_ ). His favorite messages, though, were a series of beautiful shots of the river at sundown when everything was golden and lovely. Louis'd captioned it _wish you were here_ which was sweet, if a bit out of character. Nick was much less surprised by the message that followed- _so i could drown you again :)_

Harry says Nick's probably in love with Louis, and Nick usually tells Harry to shut his vapid popstar mouth and mind his own business. Then Niall tends to pop up out of nowhere and tell Nick to get his head out of his ass.

It's a fragile, gentle thing, Nick's friendship with One Direction.

* * *

So the tour starts, and Nick has an excuse to go to the river even more often than he normally does (which, thank you very much, Finchy, is not an _embarrassing_ amount. Nick is just a _great_ friend. A legendary friend, with absolutely no ulterior motives). The river's not a lonely place anymore. There are nearly always people picnicking and lazing about, and as nice as that is for Louis, it isn't really conducive to the sort of things Louis has gotten interested in now that he's sure no one's going to forget him any time soon. Sometimes Nick shows up and Louis drags him out to the big rock and kisses him for hours. It happens often enough the tabloids have even stopped constantly reporting on Nick's very public yet illicit cross-species romance. It happens so much that there were _breakup rumors_ the one weekend Nick didn't show up at the river because he was ill.

Nick still has a clipout of that article framed in his living room courtesy of Niall. He'd even highlighted his favorite bit:

_"When asked to comment on the split, the river creature declined before spitting an impressive fountain of water into the reporter's face."_

It's all ridiculous because they aren't- anything, really. Nick just comes by sometimes (a lot of times) and Louis just...is a river. There's nothing to break up. There's nothing to write about. There's certainly nothing to be nervous about as Nick packs his bag full of camping gear. It's just a sleeping bag and takeaway and some candles- because it'll be dark, obviously, not because there's like- Nothing's going on.

Harry texts him _good luck ;)_ and Niall sends _get in_ shortly after. They're just being brats, honestly, because Nothing Is Going On.

It's just gone dusk when Nick reaches the riverbank (at least his legs have gotten _good_ from making this trek every week; he looks great in tights), and Louis is waiting, sitting by the treasure tree on the other side and fiddling with his new phone. It's the most waterproofed device Nick's ever even heard of- he's half sure Louis could make a call from the ocean floor if he could get there.

He looks up as soon as he hears Nick, and Nick's chest does something probably stupid and dangerous at the huge grin on Louis' face. "Hiya," Nick says, voice going strange and wobbly.

God, this is all so stupid.

Louis chirps back, "Hiya!" and scrambles into the river, doggy paddles across because he's ridiculous. "What'd you bring me?" he demands, climbing up the bank until he can wrap Nick in the wettest, muddiest hug in history.

"Ugh." Nick waits until Louis releases him and then drops his heavy pack to the ground, kneels and digs through it until he finds the thermos of tea and a bottle of wine.

"Romantic," Louis says, taking the bottle and ignoring the thermos, "but hardly personal. I'll have to chew off a finger or something if this is all you brought."

Nick's not entirely sure Louis is joking, but he'd sort of expected this. "It's personal. It's- um- it's actually, like, really personal."

Louis drops onto his back in the grass, settling the wine bottle on his stomach and blinking up at Nick. "Enlighten me, then."

Nick gets to the ground a bit more carefully, pulling out the waterproof picnic blanket from what feels like forever ago and sitting cross-legged, watching Louis closely. "Harry gave it to me."

"Not everything Harry gives you is personal," Louis counters quickly, rolling his eyes. "This is like when Zayn forgot to bring something so he tried to give me a gas receipt he had in his pocket. _Niall paid, which I thought was nice, so it's personal, right?_ " He snorts.

Nick is sort of trying to remember if Zayn still has all his fingers. He thinks yes. "Okay, but he gave it to me for- for a special reason, like, so it's. It's personal. Swear."

The sticky note is still in Nick's kitchen trashcan- _share it with someone special ;););););)_

Not like he's going to mention that right this minute, though. Louis appraises him for a moment, then turns the wine bottle in his hands slowly, tosses it back and forth like he's testing the weight.

"Alright," he says after a minute. "Tea, first." He makes grabby hands for the thermos and Nick hides his sigh of relief with a really impressive eye roll.

* * *

 

It's proper nighttime and they've gotten into the wine. It turns out Louis _really_ likes wine.

"It's like all those myths- where the people pour wine on the altars for the gods-"

Nick laughs, charmed in spite of himself by Louis' gently slurred speech. "Are you calling yourself a god, now?"

It's disconcerting when Louis turns to him slowly, eyes shining brighter than the dark should allow. "What did you _think_ I was?" he asks, like he's genuinely curious. Nick's stomach swoops, drops, threatens to crawl out his mouth.

So he's been making out with a god a few times a week. No big deal.

"I should bring you wine more often I guess," Nick says easily, hoping it covers up the shiver that works through him. He's always, always forgetting what Louis is- or, more specifically, what he _isn't_ , since Nick still hasn't entirely found categories that fit Louis. River. God. Handsy when tipsy, apparently.

Nick goes easily when Louis pushes him down onto the blanket. He's got the mostly empty wine bottle tucked up under his arm, and he's careful not to spill it when he curls up against Nick's chest. The wet doesn't bother Nick much anymore.

He's nearly asleep, more comfortable than he ever thought he'd be laying out under the open sky, _nature_ everywhere. Louis mumbles something against his collarbone, and Nick is deciding whether he should ask him to repeat himself or just continue drifting off when Louis pinches him, demands, "Did you hear me?"

"Hmmm?"

"Niall says you're in love with me," Louis repeats, matter-of-fact like it makes no difference to him.

"Does he?" Nick's speaking pretty well for someone on the verge of a heart attack. He deserves an Oscar or something.

"Yeah, he says you're like, really, really, grossly, head-over-heels in love with me." Louis' chin is resting on Nick's chest and he's peering down at Nick like he's an interesting rock Louis found in the river.

"Does he?" Nick repeats, because he can't think of anything else- _grossly, head-over-heels in love_.

"Mhmm." Louis lets his cheek drop to rest over Nick's heart, hums sleepily. "Did you know in the old world- like, back when the wine-spilling on altars thing happened all the time- did you know they thought of romantic love as a disease?"

Nick can't look at anything but the top of Louis' head, the tufts of hair sticking out at odd angels where it's started drying. "I am," he says stupidly.

"Diseased?" Louis asks, soft and teasing, fingers tapping lightly on Nick's shoulders, his neck.

"In love with you."

"Oh." Louis turns to look at him again, curious. His cheeks are dark, flushed, and Nick's so- in love with him, is the thing. "That's nice," Louis says after a moment, sounding sort of surprised. Now that Nick's said it out loud, he can't imagine why; it seems stupidly, glaringly obvious from this side of things. "I think I like that."

Nick says, "Good," because he can't imagine what else he's meant to say.

* * *

Sleeping is a non-option after that. Nick's twitchy and on edge while Louis just seems happy to suck down the rest of the wine, rifle through the takeout Nick brought.

"You're freaking out." He says it casually around a mouthful of stirfry.

"Am not." Nick so is.

"Why're you freaking out? I thought the declarations were what you lot stressed about." He swallows and shovels more food in his mouth before grinning at Nick with his cheeks full like a hamster. Nick had a hamster once. Its eye fell out. "You already got the hard bit out of the way. I know you _looooooove_ me," he sings, giggling.

Nick is never bringing Louis wine again. "I don't know what I'm meant to do with it."

The river is crashing happily along, and Nick's so used to the sound it feels like the pulse of his own heartbeat in his ears.

"Meant to do with what?"

"Liking you." Louis throws a bit of chicken at him. "Loving you," Nick clarifies, grimacing at the word.

Louis shrugs. "You're meant to love me. Why's it got to be hard? You're doing it already, aren't you?"

"You're you," Nick argues, exasperated. "You make everything hard."

Louis waggles his eyebrows at that and Nick groans, rolling facedown on the blanket. "I've made a terrible mistake. My whole life is a terrible mistake."

"Probably," Louis agrees cheerily, crawling over and plopping down on Nick's back. "At least you've got me, though."

Nick groans again, just for good measure.

* * *

 "How do you feel about handjobs?"

Nick nearly spits out his breakfast bar but manages to catch himself at the last minute. "Sorry?" It's been a week since the love thing and not much has changed, except Louis just seems even more smug than usual, which would be impressive if it weren't so irritating.

"You're in love with me. That means we can do sex stuff now."

"You're not very eloquent for a god or a river," Nick says, staring hard at the trees behind Louis' head so he want think about what Louis is asking.

"Never needed to be; I've got a great cock," Louis says, grinning as he rolls over onto his back and stretches out full-length, shaking his hips suggestively in Nick's direction. His dick is soft, cradled in the dip between his groin and thigh, and Nick pinches his own leg and looks at literally anything else.

"You're fucking ridiculous."

Louis' body relaxes and he leans up on one elbow, frowning now. "Do you not want to?"

'You nearly _drowned me_ the first time we kissed!" Nick's sort of frantic. There have been fluffy purring kittens he's wanted to touch less than he wants to touch Louis' soft dick right now. Nick's life is full of difficulty and strife.

"So, is that like a hard no?" Louis doesn't seem upset, just genuinely confused. As if a little thing like drowning shouldn't be enough to deter Nick from having sex with him.

* * *

 They end up trying the handjob thing one night. Nick gets washed halfway down the river and by the time he's hiked back to their usual spot, Louis is snoozing on the big rock, not a care in the world despite nearly drowning Nick _again._

When Nick shakes him awake, he just peers up at him blearily, yawns and rolls onto his other side. "We'll just have to practice is all." He falls back asleep before Nick's even done formulating a response. Nick is soaked and exhausted and he didn't even get to come. If Louis weren't so cute and capable of kicking Nick's ass, Nick would have some _words_ for him.

* * *

 

The second time is better in that Nick actually manages to squeeze an orgasm out of it before Louis gasps, eyes snapping shut as his body seizes up and the river roars, swells and drags Nick under. While he's bumping along the rocky bottom, he has time to think about how this is probably all a great big metaphor for something.

* * *

"I think you should blow me," Louis suggests offhandedly, paddling lazy circles around the rock where Nick is resting. Nick tilts his sunglasses down to glare at him.

"Fuck you, you blow me! At least I won't summon half a fucking flood when I shoot off."

Louis ducks under, comes back up and spits a great arc of water directly into Nick's face. "Yeah, you can barely do a little puddle," Louis says, smirking and clearly very pleased with himself.

"You're not funny." Nick lays back on the rock and closes his eyes, prepared to drop the subject, but a moment later a great rush of water cascades over him as Louis hauls himself out of the river and on top of Nick. Nick's about to get shouty before he feels Louis' fingers fumbling with the loose knot on Nick's swim trunks.

"Not on the fucking rock," Nick groans, pushing Louis away, Nick's whole palm covering his face. "There are people everywhere."

Louis sticks his tongue out, licking Nick's palm because he's a brat. "They won't mind."

" _I_ mind."

"Diva."

"Weird swamp creature."

It devolves into a water fight (which Nick was always destined to lose), and the blowjobs are forgotten for a while.

* * *

A while lasts approximately eight hours. As soon as the sun's gone down and the riverside is mostly cleared of visitors, Louis is right back pawing away at Nick's crotch.

"This isn't a good idea," Nick sighs, sounding pretty exasperated and put upon for someone possibly about to get his dick sucked.

"You're being a whiny baby," Louis snaps, pushing Nick's shorts down his thighs and crawling between his legs. He sounds a little more uncertain a moment later when he asks, "Why don't you want me to?"

Nick's never going to figure out what makes Louis tick. He's learning to live with it. "You've got piranha teeth for starters-"

"I'll be careful!" Louis assures him, like he's affronted Nick would even think about Louis accidentally biting his dick off with his strange monster teeth.

"Careful doesn't make your teeth less pointy." Louis scowls at Nick and Nick stares back with raised eyebrows. "I'm not saying you _can't_ blow me," Nick clarifies. "I'm just saying it's all going to go horribly wrong."

"Oh, well in that case," Louis says, and then he swallows Nick down in one go.

Nick's had a lot of blowjobs, but he hasn't had a lot of blowjobs from rivers. Louis' mouth is _wet_ , like distractingly faucet-wet. Not even particularly sexy wet, just _wet_ wet. It takes a few moments for Nick to realize his whole brain is just a marquee of _wet wet wet_.

Louis pulls off and looks up at Nick, face scrunched up in concern. "Is this working? I've never had to blow anyone before."

"Ever?" Nick's weirdly surprised.

"When's the last time you heard about a god sucking someone else's dick? Now, is it working or not?"

"Um. I'm not sure actually," Nick says truthfully. He's hard, but the water gushing from Louis' mouth isn't very warm. He's turned on in a vague way that's more about the idea of Louis touching him than Louis _actually_ touching him. "You're sort of cold."

"Oh." Louis' brow furrows. "How do I fix that?"

"How am I meant to know? I've never even met anything else like you."

Louis frowns, body shifting uncomfortably as he sits up and pulls his knees to his chest. "I don't know how to fix it," he admits, sheepish.

Nick sits up as well, slowly like he might scare Louis off. "You're warmer sometimes. Like when we've been in the sun, you can even feel hot. You're-"

"Water temperature," Louis finishes, rolling his eyes. "So what do we do?"

* * *

 Waterproof heated blankets are, as it turns out, really fucking expensive. Nick buys four. Just to be safe.

Louis looks unbelievably cute wrapped up in all the blankets at once, cheeks pink from the heat. Nick tells him so because he can, and Louis scowls at him.

"This sucks," he whines. "It's so _hot_."

"You're the one that wanted to suck dick."

"Eat me, Grimshaw."

"Maybe later once you're all toasty."

* * *

It works.

It really, really works. When the blankets fall away, Louis' body is fever-hot, skin flushed and damp. By the time he's sprawled out on the ground, panting from the heat, Nick is more than a little hard just from watching him squirm around. Nick rests a hand gingerly on Louis' thigh, testing his temperature, and he's absolutely steaming in the cool night air.

"God," Louis gasps, flinching away from the touch. "God, how can you handle being hot inside like this all the time?" He arches his back, lets his legs fall open, stretches his arms above his head and claws at the blankets beneath him. "It feels like the whole world's on fire."

"Is it bad?" Nick asks, worried. He's not sure what he should do- get water from the river and pour it on Louis, maybe? Dunk him?

" _No_." Louis brings a hand down to brush over his own stomach, back up to twist restlessly at one tight nipple. "C'mere," he demands, spreading his legs wider for Nick to fit between. Nick moves quickly, settling in gratefully against the furnace-like heat radiating from Louis' body. Louis sighs softly, eyelids fluttering shut, and fits himself as close to Nick as possible. "You feel good- cooler than me," Louis mumbles into Nick's shoulder, biting down gently- and then not so gently, because he can never be civil for long.

Nick knows that if he speaks he's going to say something stupid like _you're really hot_ (ha fucking ha), so instead he grips Louis' jaw in both hands, leans in to kiss him and feel the unnatural heat of his mouth.

Louis breaks away, tiny, shallow breaths ghosting over Nick's chin. "We have to do something- before I cool off. Please." The _please_ is punctuated by Louis rolling his hips up, foreskin dragging along Nick's clenched stomach.

"Alright." Nick would probably agree to nearly anything with Louis' dick leaking all over him, but that's a deep personal flaw he'll have to work on at another time. "Alright, what do you want?"

"I don't know- whatever, anything. Fuck, it feels like my blood is boiling; everything in me is just _hot_ -"

"Can you stop saying that, _Jesus_ -"

Louis stills from his constant wiggling, blinks up at Nick thoughtfully. "Why? Is it working?"

Nick stares down at him, confused. "Is what working?"

"I'm trying to get you to fuck me- I thought we'd established that."

Nick nearly swallows his tongue, jerks away from the sauna of Louis' body. "Hang on, I thought we were still on blowjobs- we were doing blowjobs, is what you said-"

"Well that was before you set me on fire, wasn't it?" Louis snaps, shifting again, shoving at Nick until he's on his back with Louis perched astride his hips. "Can we try, or-?"

"Yeah," Nick cuts in, because fuck it honestly. He's going to drown sooner or later and this seems like an alright way to go about it, all possible paths considered. "Yeah, just- I don't have lube or anything."

Louis rolls his eyes, snorting. "Oh," he says, faux breathy and concerned, one hand fluttering helplessly against his chest while the other drops to firmly grasp Nick's dick. "Whatever shall we do without lubrication? I'm so  _fucking_ dry all the  _fucking_ time." He grins, huge and bright and sharp and a little less human than usual, and rocks up onto his knees, positioning himself carefully.

"Have you ever-" Nick tries, because this is all moving very fast, and he's mostly sure he's dreaming.

The question makes Louis pause, scowling. "I'm not a fucking virgin, Nick. I'm as old as this river." He _is_ the fucking river, actually, but Nick figures now's not the time for technicalities. 

Nick's doing his best not to thrust into the hot grip of Louis' fist. "Well you'd never even fucking blown anyone before; it's a reasonable question!"

"I know what I like," Louis says with an air of finality, dropping his gaze to watch himself line up and start pressing down, pushing Nick in against the tight resistance of his body. Nick's probably dying. Everything is still wet-  _wet wet wet-_ but it's definitely a good wet this time.

"Is this working?" Louis asks, sly little turn to the corner of his lips, and Nick reaches up to pinch one of his nipples in retaliation. Louis' body is _pouring_ water so Nick's hand slips off, but he figures it's the thought that counts.

"You're awful." And _hot_ , really, really, hot- and Nick can hear the flow of the river speeding up as Louis works his hips faster, and _god_ Nick is so going to be drowned at any moment.

 _Worth it_ , he thinks fuzzily as Louis bends double to kiss him, breathing soft little noises into Nick's mouth as he squeezes around Nick's cock. Nick can feel the wet from him sliding down his dick, and he's going to come embarrassingly quickly- though he supposes that's for the best, since the whole earth will probably flood when Louis orgasms.

Nick manages to win the race only just, pushed over the edge by Louis' breathy _oh fuck_ right in his ear. As much as he can ever be ready for anything Louis does, Nick's ready for it this time when Louis clenches up and comes, quiet gasp drowned out by the river raging, crashing up the gentle slope of the bank and washing over them both. The water isn't cold- it's the same temperature as Louis' overheated body, and it feels _nice_ when the tide of it tugs them out into the stream, gentler than Nick expected.

Louis clings to him and looks smug when the river doesn't pull Nick under and away this time, the flood dying off as quickly as it'd come. "I'm getting good at this," Louis says proudly, dragging a stunned Nick through the water and onto the great rock in the center. "Probably it's just you being underwhelming though. If someone who was properly good at fucking ever came around-"

Nick cuts him off with a hand over his mouth. This is far too much post-coital excitement for Nick. He's getting old. He can't keep up with rivers anymore. This is all ridiculous.

"Thanks for not drowning me," he says, half serious. Louis' face falls for a moment.

"I wouldn't," he says, sincere and a little indignant.

Nick just hums agreeably, stretching out on his back to contemplate all the near-death orgasms in his future. When it comes to things involving Louis, Nick is just never as terrified as he probably should be. After a moment, Louis curls up by his side, body still a bit warmer than Nick's used to. "I really wouldn't on purpose," he whispers a bit later, and Nick snorts, ruffles Louis' damp hair.

"I know, love."

* * *

"He's really happy." Harry and Nick are resting high up on the bank, watching Liam and Niall try to drag Louis under while Zayn sits on the big rock, watching them all distrustfully. Harry can't go in the water because he'd gone and gotten a huge tattoo on his ribs- a landscape of the river, actually. Louis'd gone still and narrow-eyed when Harry showed him, and then had to be physically restrained from hauling Harry in the river to hug him on the riverbed, one of his favorite pastimes.

"Seems that way," Nick agrees easily, grimacing when Louis laughs menacingly and sends a huge tidal wave splashing over Zayn. That's not going to end well.

Harry shifts, looking at Nick seriously with his creepy deer eyes. "Thank you," he says earnestly, "for everything. Thank you so much."

"God, don't be a sap, Harry." Nick's face is burning. Probably just from the sun.

"You're my best friend, too, you know. Both of you. I'm really glad-"

"Shut _up,_ Styles, god, stop trying to give me feelings."

Harry bleats a surprised laugh, and it gets Louis' attention. He peers up at them both suspiciously, then makes a sign that Nick supposes means _I'm watching the two of you_ before going back to playfully (hopefully) drowning Niall.

* * *

 

**And in conclusion:**

By the time the next tour ends, the band gets a proper recording contract. Louis' name ends up right there in the album credits, and, after some messing about with traveling waterproofed recording equipment, his voice ends up on the album, singing along with Harry and Zayn and Liam and Niall. There are Big Plans for the second annual River Fest (though some of Louis' demands- a fight to the death in his honor and a humpback whale because he's always wanted to see both, apparently- had to be nixed). Louis _does_ end up getting Zayn and Niall to make out on stage, which he insists is almost as interesting as a fight to the death anyway.

Harry never gets rid of his antlers, and eventually hunts down the same witch fan in order to get a deer tail cursed on as well. She agrees to help him out in exchange for a photo op, which Harry thankfully has time for. He also convinces Liam to come along, and Liam is later spotted sporting tiny goat horns. When questioned by a magazine, he was quoted saying, "I didn't want anything flashy, you know. I think these are the perfect size for me."

Nick and Louis get better at sex, and eventually learn to use Louis' floodgasms to help with farming down the river in dry seasons. Louis never drowns Nick irreparably in the process, though there are some close calls. They remain very in love and Nick slowly but surely runs out of personal items to bring as offerings, so he starts paying in blowjobs, which Louis insists is cheating. He never cuts off any of Nick's extremities, though, so Nick figures Louis is just being a difficult asshole.

**The End.**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://tippingvelvets.tumblr.com)


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